Often a token Christmas tipple, banished to the back of the fridge come Boxing Day, cream liqueurs have been somewhat pigeon-holed as a festive season only type of drink, or at most they come out at the end of a long evening as a white flag signalling time’s up, go home. The Michael Bublé of the spirit world let’s say.

However, in recent years, the tide has begun turning on this sweet creamy drink. The market leader Baileys haven’t quite had their feathers ruffled yet, but expansion in the category is very much apparent as some of the big brands like Dead Man’s Fingers increased their already three strong cream liqueur offering by a further two SKU’s in August last year.

Poppy Williams, Marketing Manager at Halewood Artisanal Spirits, comments; “Cream liqueurs are experiencing strong value growth.” And she’s not wrong.

Since 2020 the category has been on an upward trend. At the start of the curve, Mary Sadlier, CEO of Coole Swan Irish Cream Liqueurs reads data from IWSR reports at the time, commenting on the fact that between 2020 and 2021 cream liqueur achieved a 25% growth, she points out this is “twice the growth rate of gin”. An exciting headline indeed.

More recently and even more impressively, CGA data analysing spirit market value between 2022 and 2023 in GB paints a similar rousing picture as the category continues to climb. Cream liqueur is in growth averaging a whopping 28.9% from one year to the next.

For comparison, excluding cream liqueur, there were 13 spirit categories in the same CGA report. Nine of them were in growth in terms of value, the average percentage increase being just 6.1%, this when compared to cream liqueur’s almost 30% increase, highlights how astonishing the rapid upsurge in cream liqueur’s popularity actually is.

This is all very nice but what is driving this spike and when are people drinking cream liqueur?

Gen Z’s apparent incline towards “Low and No” might have something to do with it. In the world of spirits, a cream liqueur has a low ABV, coupled with the fact it’s typically quite sweet and indulgent, could it be the “just one” drink that a younger audience treat themselves to?

With sales of non cream liqueurs, predominantly of the gin inspired variety in decline, are the sweet toothed among us seeking out the next big thing?

Or could it simply be that the offering of cream liqueur is broadening as brands see gaps in the market and increase their ranges, inevitably leading to the consumer “giving it a go”. Build it and they will come as the saying goes, produce it and they will sip.

Barti, a brand who have recently released their own plant-based version of the creamy tipple conducted a survey amongst their social media followers (who in the main are spiced rum drinkers, since rum is their primary focus product). When 355 people were asked “Have your habits involving cream liqueur changed?” 32% answered that they had changed and that they now drink more cream liqueur than they used to. As opposed to 5% who said, yes they drink it less, and 63% who said their habits hadn’t changed.

Barti, armoured with this information and the unique advantage of having a cream liqueur which will not curdle or split (due to it being non-dairy), are currently ramping up production for the year after what Francesca Barnikel, MD describes as a colossal Christmas, she says “We weren’t ready for it. We thought it would be a nice seasonal limited edition. The immediate almost cult-like demand for Barti Cream was nothing short of mind blowing. We sold out twice in that last few weeks before Christmas and that was despite limiting the quantity on each order to try and manage stock. What was most interesting was that when we came back in January, the list of trade preorders was as long as the one we had in mid-December.”

She goes on; “What makes our product unique is that the flavour recipe doesn’t differ too far from that of our Barti spiced rum, but the ingredients behave differently on the creamy backdrop, conjuring a completely new taste. Couple this with the vegan aspect, it’s bang on trend and a really versatile ingredient in any mixologist’s artillery.”

Francesca’s comments on Barti’s January sales performance encourage us to wonder, like many of the cream liqueur brands out there, how will seasonality come into play over the next few months and years, can a cream liqueur really start throwing its weight around in the summer? Michael Bublé somewhat successfully endeavours to escape the confinements of December, maybe cream liqueur can too?